Former Twitter CEO Launches Dev Kit for Bitcoin Payment Systems

Sam Edwards -

Jack Dorsey, Twitter's founder and former CEO has been an avid bitcoin supporter for years now. Lately, it seems his newest endeavor has been to go all-in on the BTC network.

His payment processing company, Square, is renaming its corporate entity to "Block" as it pivots more to bitcoin and blockchain technology. They're currently working on building a decentralized exchange where users can buy bitcoin without going through a centralized entity.

But this week, Block's bitcoin development arm, Spiral, launched an announcement video for their Lightning Development Kit. You can watch the short film here:

The Lightning Development Kit (LDK) is an open-source library that helps bitcoin wallet developers plug into the Lightning Network, a second technology layer that operates on top of bitcoin that allows faster transactions.

Think of bitcoin as land. Land must be secure, sturdy, and reliable to build on. Bitcoin's transactions are energy-intensive and are slow to be confirmed on the bitcoin blockchain. This is a feature, not a bug. Its steadiness and energy use are core components ensuring that each bitcoin transaction is valid and cryptographically immutable.

The Lightning Network is a marketplace built on top of the land. It's a peer-to-peer network that uses complex programming to allow users to transact bitcoin without inscribing each transaction immediately on the blockchain. This means faster and cheaper transactions than traditional payment methods that require fees from a centralized entity. This video gives a helpful explanation of how it works:

We're still very early. Bitcoin is still discovering its store-of-value phase and needs more time and adoption to be a global medium of exchange. But as more tech giants like Jack Dorsey develop use cases for bitcoin, as more nations like El Salvador adopt bitcoin, and as more institutions like Microstrategy, Morgan Stanley, and Fidelity research and invest in bitcoin, the upside remains promising.

This article, along with all content and opinions from BTC Examiner, is for educational purposes only and is not financial advice. Please reach out to your independent financial advisor before making any investment.